1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to manipulation of stored data and, more particularly, to manipulating data in record file data storage systems through object-oriented programming techniques.
2. Description of the Related Art
The dominant method of representing and storing data in computer databases follows a top-down, procedural data model. In the procedural model, systems are represented as a collection of states whose condition at any particular time are represented by data values stored in record-oriented data files. The data values are changed through the operation of an application program. Generally, a user accesses an application program and manipulates the data representing a system through an application program interface (API). The functions performed on the data values by the application program and the record file data structures are matched to a particular data model problem-solution format and are not easily re-used for other application programs.